Mycobacterium tuberculosis is one of the most ancient bacterial pathogens and remains the leading cause of death from a single bacterial agent. The success of M. tuberculosis relies greatly on its ability to parasitize and disable its host macrophages.

Background: Adherence to study registration and reporting best practices are vital to foster evidence-based medicine. Poor adherence to these standards in clinical trials conducted in Canada would be detrimental to patients, researchers, and the public alike. Methods: All registered clinical trials on ClinicalTrials.gov conducted in Canada as of 2009 and completed by 2019 were identified. A cross-sectional analysis of those trials assessed prospective registration, subsequent result reporting in the registry, and subsequent publication of study findings. The lead sponsor, phase of study, clinical trial site location, total patient enrollment, number of arms, type of masking, type of allocation, year of completion, and patient demographics were examined as potential effect modifiers to these best practices. Results: A total of 6,720 trials met the inclusion criteria. From 2009-2019, 59% (n=3,967) of them were registered prospectively and 39% (n=2,642) reported their results in the registry. Of the trials registered between 2009-2014, 55% (n=1,482) were subsequently published in an academic journal. Of the 3,763 trials conducted exclusively in Canada, 3% (n=123) met all 3 criteria of: prospective registration, reporting in the registry, and publishing findings. In contrast, of the remaining 2,957 trials with both Canadian and international sites, 41% (n=1,238) had an overall compliance to these three criteria. Overall, the odds of having adherence to all three practices concurrently in Canadian trials decreases by 95% when compared to international trials (OR = 0.05; 95CI: 0.04 – 0.06). Conclusion: Canadian clinical trials substantially lacked adherence to study registration and reporting best practices. Knowledge of this widespread non-compliance should motivate stakeholders in the Canadian clinical trials ecosystem to address and continue to monitor this problem. The data presented provides a baseline against which to compare any improvement in the registration and reporting of clinical trials in Canada.

ABSTRACT:A sixty-five year old woman developed relapsing polychondritis with three of the diagnostic criteria established by McAdam et al. (1976), namely bilateral auricular chondritis, ocular inflammation and both cochlear and vestibular dysfunction. Many authors have mentioned other neurological symptoms including unilateral facial weakness. This patient is the first case described with bilateral facial weakness and cerebral manifestations.Relapsing polychondritis, an uncommon, recurrent, inflammatory disorder affecting the cartilaginous tissues of the body (Jaksch-Wartenhorst, 1923; Herman, 1981), is regularly associated with audiovestibular dysfunction (Bollet et al., 1969; Cody et al., 1971; McAdam et al., 1976; Ridgway et al., 1979). McAdam et al. (1976) and Ridgway et al. (1979) have mentioned other neurological symptoms including unilateral facial weakness. We recently observed a patient with polychondritis and multifocal neurological abnormalities. We believe this is the first case described with bilateral facial nerve palsy and with cerebral manifestations.

Background Peer review is an integral part of maintaining the current standard of scientific publishing. Despite this, there is no training standard for peer reviewers and review guidelines tend to vary between journals. The purpose of this study was to conduct a systematic review of all openly available online training in scholarly peer review and to analyze their characteristics. Methods MEDLINE, PsycINFO, Embase, ERIC, and Web of Science were systematically searched. Additional grey literature searches were conducted on Google, YouTube, university library websites, publisher websites and peer review related events and groups. All English or French training material in scholarly manuscript peer review of biomedical manuscripts openly accessible online on the search date (September 12, 2021) were included. Sources created prior to 2012 were excluded. Screening was conducted in duplicate in two separate phases: title and abstract followed by full text. Data extraction was conducted by one reviewer and verified by a second. Conflicts were resolved by third-party at both stages. Characteristics were reported using frequencies and percentages. A direct content analysis was preformed using pre-defined topics of interest based on existing checklists for peer reviewers. A risk of bias tool was purpose-built for this study to evaluate the included training material as evidence-based. The tool was used in duplicate with conflicts resolved through discussion between the two reviewers. Results After screening 1244 records, there were 45 sources that met the inclusion criteria; however, 23 of 45 (51%) were not able to be fully accessed for data extraction. The most common barriers to access were membership requirements (n = 11 of 23, 48%), availability for a limited time (n = 8, 35%), and paywalls with an average cost of $99 USD (n = 7, 30%). The remaining 22 documents were included in the data analysis. All documents were published in English. Most documents either did not report publication date (n = 10, 45%) or were created in the last five years (n = 10, 45%). The most common training format was an online module (n = 12, 57%) with an estimated completion time of less than one hour (n = 15, 68%). The most frequently covered topics included how to write a peer review report (n = 20, 91%), critical appraisal of data and results (n = 18, 82%), and a definition of peer review (n = 18, 82%). Critical appraisal of reporting guidelines (n = 9, 41%), clinical trials (n = 4, 18%), and statistical analysis (n = 4, 18%) were less commonly covered. Using our ad-hoc risk of bias tool, four documents (18%) met our criteria for evidence-based. Conclusion Our comprehensive search of the literature identified twenty-two openly accessible online training materials in manuscript peer review. For such a crucial step in the dissemination of literature, a lack of training could potentially explain disparities in the quality of scholarly publishing. Future efforts should be focused on creating a more unified openly accessible online manuscript peer review training program.